Stories from the second cubicle on the left

Day #875

10:15 AM: Carson Kressley is aghast that Crate & Barrel is closing its Michigan Avenue store to make way for a new Starbucks roasting site. This was reported last week, but Carson Kressley is just seeing it now.

Carson Kressley: Okay, so I read the article. There will not be another Crate & Barrel location opening in the city. They’re just closing that one down. The Starbucks will offer local artisinal baked goods and coffee from around the world.

Phyllis: So you’ll have to go down to Michigan Avenue to get baked goods from the bakery down the street in your neighborhood.

Carson Kressley: Ha! I don’t plan to be going there for baked goods.

Phyllis: Okay, now I’m here on the Starbucks website and it looks like they’ve got this new unicorn drink.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Carson Kressley: You haven’t heard about this? It was all over the internet last week.

Phyllis: No, that’s me though. Yesterday’s news today!

Carson Kressley: It’s not even a coffee drink.

Phyllis: It’s not?!

Carson Kressley: No! There’s no coffee in it. It’s just pure sugar.

Phyllis: Now, why would these people who wouldn’t even drink a regular soda because of the sugar, go to Starbucks and waste 1,000 calories on a pink drink?

Carson Kressley: And there are all these articles about baristas [pronounced bah-ris-tas] who hate making these drinks because they have all these ingredients and they’re sticky.

Now the conversation has switched to the costs of purchasing things in the city…

Phyllis: And do you know they have this thing called a Navy Pier tax?

Carson Kressley: No. What’s that?

Phyllis: Well, they add on like an extra half a percent for everything you buy in the Loop.

Carson Kressley: Really? I had no idea. So if I buy something at Target here in the Loop, it’ll cost more than at the Target near my house?

Phyllis: Yes. I was laughing the other day. I was buying something from Walgreens and I’m thinking, “Okay, this is 99 cents. But you add another 11.5 cents for the tax and then 7 cents on top of that for the bag…” It was almost two dollars!